Perched on the Aravalli hills and overlooking the city of Jaipur, the Madhavendra Palace’s Nahargarh Fort has been called a close cousin of the Amber Fort. While the latter already has its steady stream of visitors, the former is about to get its share of the limelight, thanks to intrepid art lovers who have set out to make it a destination for Contemporary art. In December, around 50 pieces of sculpture will be displayed against the backdrop of this stately monument, built in 1734 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II. A royal retreat, curated by Peter Nagy, founding director of Delhi’s Nature Morte, the venture is the result of a public-private collaboration between the government of Rajasthan, spearheaded by Vasundhara Raje Scindia and Meera Mehrishi, along with the not-for-profi t Saat Saath Arts, headed by Aparajita Jain, with Malvika Singh as the main champion and supporter, and the backing of patrons like Shreyasi Goenka. For the first iteration, scheduled between December

RULES OF ENGAGEMENTJain’s conviction that unless art is more visible in the public domain, one cannot expect the general populace to be invested in its relevance to their lives, formed the basis of her support of this impermanent sculpture park. “We have an 8,000-year-old history of art and culture. While there is growing curiosity and reverence among the young towards our traditional arts, there is a general lack of pride or understanding of Contemporary art and culture,” says the Nature Morte co-director. Jain is sure that this update to the Nahargarh Fort will draw in larger numbers of visitors who will come specially to view the works, thus making it a destination—an approach that’s different from simply placing art in a shopping mall or a restaurant. “Our choice of this fort has a lot to do with logistics. The works have to be airlifted and we have to be extremely careful with the pieces,” she says. “However, this is the first sculpture park of this magnitude in the country and we are excited.”

Shreyasi Goenka, co-director of Saat Saath Arts and content advisor at DNA and one of the project’s private funders, shares Jain’s enthusiasm. She points out that while the Rajasthan government, in particular, has woken up to the fact that Modern and Contemporary art can become part of the tourism infrastructure and are proactively investing in culture, private patronage also has its role to play. “Even in the past, it was the maharajas and royalty who commissioned art and it never came out of the state fund. It is only fair that corporates and private funders are utilised for projects such as these,” says Goenka, who has been building her private art collection over many years. “I find Contemporary art stimulates people in a way that is unique. Unlike craft and traditional art that can get subsumed into the background or fall into a blind spot, Contemporary art provokes. You can either hate it or love it but you cannot ignore it,” she says.

OUT OF THE WHITE BOXPeter Nagy, one of India’s foremost curators who surprisingly began his career in the Indian art world as an artist, with a solo show at Gallery Chemould in the late 1990s, has always dreamed of a public art project in Jaipur. “In fact, this idea of a public sculpture park began way back in 2000-2001 for the Virasat Festival. But that did not take off and it ended up becoming the Jaipur Literature Festival. When Meera (Mehrishi) asked me if I would be interested in revisiting the project, I jumped at it,” he says.
The palace is also known for its beautiful fresco paintings, and Nagy is fascinated by the idea of juxtaposing them with Bharti Kher’s “complex and almost Gothic works,” or artist duo Thukral & Tagra’s wings or paisley works.

Curatorially speaking, though, it is no small feat to get large pieces of sculpture transported up a hillside. Moreover, the Fort is a heritage building with a no-nails policy. Still, Nagy is also looking forward to the challenge of lugging up a bronze sculpture by Huma Bhabha of a woman that looks part deity, part-athlete. “While curating I was looking for works that could just be plonked in the centre of a hall or in the more intimate corner of a room where no nails or support was required,” he says. “I want the sculptures to bring the place back to life, and evoke the notion of a pleasure palace, since the Maharaja would bring his concubines here. The works will conjure up ghosts of the past and reflect a little erotic and playful energy.”

Nagy is equally excited about including Mumbai-based artist Manish Nai’s soft sculptures, patterned and shaped like gigantic, elongated sticks. “My choice reflects that I have always been trying to get out of the white box; which is why installing a sculpture in an unexpected location such as this is new and adventurous for me,” he says.

GENERATION NEXTThukral & Tagra, who will be showing Memorial-a, an abstract sculptural work involving a table tennis board and a Gandhi statue alongside Arrested Image Of A Dream, a monumental set of concrete wings, are curious to see the languages coming together, to see how the present talks to the past. “This conversation almost occurs in the future and fascinates us,” say Thukral & Tagra in a joint statement.

Thukral & Tagra also feel strongly about public art, believing it to be more democratic and porous. “Art in the public domain solves a specific purpose. It’s different from showing in a closed space,” they concur. “The purpose of art here is ideal-ly to build community, interaction, to question and reflect. Here, no age, colour, language or religion come in between the artwork and the gaze.”

The second phase of this project, which will begin after the inaugural display ends in November 2018, will also be curated by Nagy and he tells us that we can look forward to more international artists and a tighter curation of just five to six artists and 10 to 15 works. Like the other contributors in this venture, he is confident that the Pink City will soon become a hot new art destination. Besides, why shouldn’t culture be capitalised upon? Why shouldn’t it help the economy? The answers are all written on the frescoed wall. “If people can travel all the way to Basel and Athens or Kassel in Germany to see Indian art, then why won’t they travel to Jaipur? Currently, this is a couples’ getaway, but it will soon be a buzzing art destination,” he assures us.